This time through the series, something struck me. There is a dark substory. The backstory to why Voldemort and the Deatheaters even come to power and that war is a disturbing one. It is Dumbledore's dark past too. Harry is mixed up in this as he is destined to confront Voldemort and bring balance to the force - sorry wrong series - that is Anakin Skywalker. After a lifetime of abuse from his adopted parents and brother, he is thrilled to learn on his 11th birthday that he is not like them; he is a wizard. This is thrilling because it not only gives him an escape from his life, but opens the door to a secret and magical world. He is a mix of savior and counter to Voldemort's dark aims - he befriends repeatedly halfbloods, but he is just as set apart from the muggle world. But he offers a better way to be set apart and yet not be an enemy to the rest of the world.
There is a dark side to this world though. Magical people internalize this separateness and see their secret knowledge and power make them different and better than their nonmagical neighbors. They call the majority non-magical people muggles or mudbloods. They want to restrict marriages between them to keep their race pure. Their racist attitudes are built into the mythology and the history of their school. It is the fight between Slytherin and the other founders. This is the evil that is behind Voldemort. He is just the face of that intolerance. And unfortunately, it really didn't end with his death.
I see some echoes of that in Evangelical and Mormon theology. It may be behind our own racist past and led to the denial of the priesthood and temple ordinances to black members all the way to the 1970s. I am not saying it was an inevitable result, but it is the soil that these kind of dangerous ideologies grow in. I see it in our political movements as well - polarization and separation of news sources, people having social and political bubbles, "America first", anti immigrant rhetoric, weaponizing patriotic language
- Magical world view - expanded cosmology, nature, and apocalyptic world view, a rejection of science. Our religion was founded by this kind of thinking - Book of Mormon was translated with a rock and they used divining rods, etc. for trying to scry god's will. Plus I worry that planning for a savior to come and solve the problems for us in a Millenial conflict keeps us from really addressing the problems we have.
- Secret knowledge and levels - Temple, second endowment, but it also levels of priesthood and church callings. The hierarchical thinking about knowledge and transparency. I think this is one of the reasons the LDS church stopped revealing results of its audits. It does them, but it isn't open to the whole body of the church. It is need to know information. But this kind of culture makes it relatively easy to suppress and ignore past history that is negative. Just shut that away because it will hurt people's faith and keep that knowledge to the people who are in higher levels and can handle it.
- Set apart - being a Chosen people means others are not chosen. In Harry Potter, you literally get a special invitation and come to a secret school in a secret location. But it means that the magical community is isolated even when surrounded by muggle towns and neighbors. It would have been such a different book if they had banded together with muggles to fight Voldemort. For us in the LDS church, it also means that we aren't fully in our communities. Think about even the language we use to describe ourselves - a ward family, brother, sister, gentile, active, inactive, apostate, nonmember, investigator. We are invested heavily in our church lives - activities, seminary, church, missions, church schools, social networks, business networks, etc. And it enables us to be separate to be a holy and peculiar people, but it may mean we aren't truly invested in our communities. It means we see the rest of the world as other.
- Power and authority reinforced through social control - In Harry Potter they have separate schools, a separate ministry, different shops, etc. And Voldemort isn't the only enemy to Harry - it is the ministry itself that is trying to hold on to power and keep control and although they are against Voldemort - the worst of embodiment of the separatism that keeps Muggles out of their lives, they justify plenty of terrible actions to keep power and maintain their isolation. And they do it out of love - out of trying to do their best to keep their culture and their people safe.
Harry Potter shows a better alternative to Voldemort - embracing people that are diverse and different within his community - Hermione, Hagrid, Firenze, Lupin, Dobby, Kreacher, the goblin in the last book, Buckbeak, even the ghosts at the school and the captured dragon in Gringotts, and all of his friends that are kind of different and unique. He wins not because he is a better magician than Voldemort, but because he in the end has help from all the people on the fringes - even the Malfoys that are kind of apostate Death Eaters by the end. But they are still all within the magical world. I would love to see another series of books on what happens if they were exposed. What if Hogwarts students went to a regular school - and say learned math and history instead of Muggle studies and Arithmancy. What if they used technology and magic together.
What does this mean for me? As we have stepped back from our safe Mormon world during this year, it is a scary muggle world out there. I loved feeling like I was part of a special, set apart generation, saved for these latter days. I went to BYU - the closest Mormon thing to Hogwarts and have been set apart for many callings since. I have been embedded in this set apart community and it has been my culture, my history, and a safe place. It gave me roles and heroes to build my life around. I see my kids chaffing against those expectations though. And maybe it is time to start to build more connection with the rest of the world.
References
American segregation https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/rappaports-law-en
https://boaporg.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/muggles-mormons-and-theology/
